We made a quick trip to Beaufort to capture some Marmite for my breakfast toast.

After we made our way across the bridge, we drove down a street with a patch of some freshly mown grass.

Seeing grass being cut in late February reminded me of why I love living in Carteret County.

On an earlier foray we had located Carteret County's only supply of Marmite at the new Coastal Community Market. Fortunately there had not been a run on the Marmite which I consider to be a market of civilization.

My wife has a different opinion and likes to describe it as country ham flavored axle grease.

We turned out to find some other things that I have had on my list for a while.

I bought some cracked wheat and millet for my next loaf of homemade bread. I have gotten frustrated with the lack of a good bakery on the coast. I have taken baking into my hands.

I am enjoying the fruits of my bread baking labor, but I have to be careful not to drop one of my lead loaves on my feet, I might end up in the emergency room.

It has been many years since I baked any bread except with a bread maker. Those long ago years were when we were living in an old farm house on the coast of Nova Scotia.

My wife baked many loaves when we ran our large cattle farm in New Brunswick. She tells me that she is baked out so if I want homemade bread, I have to do it myself.

Still I will get better at it. Kneading dough is very therapeutic thing to do in a challenging real estate market.

I think my bread not rising as much this time was related to buying slow acting yeast and not feeding them any sugar.

Sugar for the yeast is one of those crucial ingredients that wives don't write down. I suspect the info is passed from generation to generation carved on the back of their bread boards.

The next iteration of bread will have to wait for another evening. Tonight I had to get ahead of those sprouts of green showing in my yard. I put some pre-emergent weed killer on so that it would catch tomorrow's rains.

Spring is coming though it will not seem like it on Wednesday and Thursday with a blast of cold air.

Tags: Marmite, Bread, Grass, Spring